Tomorrow is the summer solstice, the longest day, and the sea-hides at Leighton Moss were an escape from the blaze of the heat wave. A grasshopper warbler sang in the reed beds and perhaps we saw him deep in reeds and flowering grasses and no longer singing. The susurration of the breeze through the high reeds and defined clouds gathering in a burnt-out sky are a delight. A male reed bunting flits about the reeds and we photograph him and a mystery companion through a screen of seeding grasses. And a tall creamy flower that puzzles me.

A pair of avocets only and a single sea-hide. A volunteer warden tells us the avocets have been predated. A few lapwing on a shoal, oyster catcher and the din of black-headed gulls. The Eric Morecambe pool is in a sorry state, water drained away to expose mud cracked and churned. All will be well, says Eric, as he kicks his heels in devil-may-care dance. Next time. And the peace of the place prevails, with birdsong from the reed-beds and the surrounding trees: chiff-chaff, Cetti's warbler and reed warbler. At the visitor centre, we hear that otter have been sighted at the public hide so we make our way there. Swans dabbling close to the hide, a great crested grebe and her chick swim through rafts of pinkish weed and white feathers scattered upon the water. Close to the reeds, the otter swims past swans and grebe, surfacing now and again. The marsh harriers are about. I spy a female in the branches of a dead tree. It's far off so I alert a photographer next to me to confirm it. He tells me it's a dead branch but he's looking at the wrong tree. Its mate flies into a willow and appears to be eating. The harriers fly, against the sky, amongst swifts, and strong sun highlights the colours of their plumage. Jill and I enjoy the peace of the place, the shade of vegetation and of the hides in a heat-wave, and the companionableness. Sotto voce, we share sightings and information and that's great because we like to learn. From somewhere in the hide red-throated diver is called. You have to be alert, ready to sift-out fake-news, it's the great-crested grebe she's looking at.

There's meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria, within the images above.A plant of wet places and here in the reed bed. You might like to compare it with dropwort, Filipendula vulgaris, a flower of limestone grassland which features in previous June blogs. You can see the structure of the flower is similar.Thanks to Natural England for a speedy identification of Thalictrum flavum, Common meadow-rue. Lesser Meadow-rue is frequent on the limestone of Scout Scar, a very different leaf and a smaller plant.